Readers of my previous rants will notice a parallel between my discomfort with so-called “Artificial Intelligence” and the race to erase personality and be most Meta. In each case, there’s a presumption that something like a distinct kin to individual human intelligence is either about to appear any minute, or has already appeared. The problem with that presumption is that people are all too willing to lower standards in order to make the purported newcomer appear smart. Just as people are willing to bend over backwards and make themselves stupid in order to make an AI interface appear smart (as happens when someone can interact with the notorious Microsoft paper clip,) so are they willing to become uncritical and dim in order to make Meta-aggregator sites appear to be coherent. There is a pedagogical connection between the culture of Artificial Intelligence and the strange allure of anonymous collectivism online. Google’s vast servers and the Wikipedia are both mentioned frequently as being the startup memory for Artificial Intelligences to come. Larry Page is quoted via a link presented to me by popurls this morning (who knows if it’s accurate) as speculating that an AI might appear within Google within a few years. George Dyson has wondered if such an entity already exists on the Net, perhaps perched within Google. My point here is not to argue about the existence of Metaphysical entities, but just to emphasize how premature and dangerous it is to lower the expectations we hold for individual human intellects. The beauty of the Internet is that it connects people. The value is in the other people. If we start to believe that the Internet itself is an entity that has something to say, we’re devaluing those people and making ourselves into idiots.Read more at hotlantis.blogspot.com

Readers of my previous rants will notice a parallel between my discomfort with so-called “Artificial Intelligence” and the race to erase personality and be most Meta. In each case, there’s a presumption that something like a distinct kin to individual human intelligence is either about to appear any minute, or has already appeared. The problem with that presumption is that people are all too willing to lower standards in order to make the purported newcomer appear smart. Just as people are willing to bend over backwards and make themselves stupid in order to make an AI interface appear smart (as happens when someone can interact with the notorious Microsoft paper clip,) so are they willing to become uncritical and dim in order to make Meta-aggregator sites appear to be coherent. There is a pedagogical connection between the culture of Artificial Intelligence and the strange allure of anonymous collectivism online. Google’s vast servers and the Wikipedia are both mentioned frequently as being the startup memory for Artificial Intelligences to come. Larry Page is quoted via a link presented to me by popurls this morning (who knows if it’s accurate) as speculating that an AI might appear within Google within a few years. George Dyson has wondered if such an entity already exists on the Net, perhaps perched within Google. My point here is not to argue about the existence of Metaphysical entities, but just to emphasize how premature and dangerous it is to lower the expectations we hold for individual human intellects. The beauty of the Internet is that it connects people. The value is in the other people. If we start to believe that the Internet itself is an entity that has something to say, we’re devaluing those people and making ourselves into idiots.Read more at hotlantis.blogspot.com

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010 Winners & Losers in 2010 Back to Top 100 Tools 2010 list

KEY F = Free, C= Commercial,  W = Windows, M=Mac, S=Server, O = Online Cells shaded blue are new tools on the list this year

WINNERS

(1) New tools on the list in 2010

2010 Place TOOL Name Platform Cost 26 Wallwisher Online noticeboard O F 51= Amplify Content Sharing & Conversation Platform O F 54= Google Wave Communicate and collaborate in real-time (support to be discontinued in December) O F

See more at c4lpt.co.uk

I Am a Cyborg and I Want My Google Implant Already

one such thing being a “Google implant” that would allow one to browse the Web simply by thinking.

Nate: What will Google look like in 2020? Hal: Now you Google things on your computer — of course. And you Google things on your phone. That’s the next stage. And I believe — people may laugh — but I think there will be an implant. So you’ll have it there, and I won’t say it’s necessarily Google, I’ll say the Web, it will access the Web of information. Arikia: Sign me up when that happens. Hal: You want your implant? Arikia: I want it now.  [laughter] Hal: Yeah! Right, see? There are a lot of people that say that. I think you will be continuously connected to the Web in 2020. You’ll be able to pull information in, information out, you’ll be able to record information. And you can do all these things now; you’re recording this conversation and you can play it back later. Nate: Sure. But you think that soon, by 2020? Hal: 2020! That’s away 10 years! Look at where we are and look at where we were 10 years ago. Google’s only 10 years old. So uh, yeah, I think so. We’ll certainly have some kind of implant interface by then, in my opinion. Nate: Will it require surgery? Or will it require some kind of earpiece that you can… I don’t know… Hal: I don’t know either. Nate: Are there people at the firm working on that? Hal: Not that I know of. Although there are people always working on user interfaces, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was thinking about it. There are people working on things that display text on your glasses.Read more at www.theatlantic.com

Google Street View Goes Live In Antarctica

Google has launched Street View in Antarctica and quickly stumbled across a major connundrum; there’s no street on the remote continent per se. Read more at www.storage.itproportal.com

Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn’t Use Them

A task killer is an app from which you can (sometimes automatically) force other apps to quit, the hope being that the fewer apps you have running in the background, the better your Android’s performance and battery life will be. Not everyone agrees with this premise, though. The argument about whether task killers are effective rages all over the internet: Android forums are full of threads with constant bickering and conflicting anecdotal experience, making it difficult for most users to make sense of the situation.

See more at lifehacker.com

See more at www.google.com

Sony Google TV for US already by October?

See more at news.idealo.co.uk